Mass Customization Strategy Research Articles

Tailoring Garment Fit for Personalized Body Image Enhancement: Insights from Digital Fitting Research

In the context of the Fashion Apparel Industry 4.0, a transformative evolution is directed towards the Online Apparel Mass Customization (OAMC) strategy, which provides efficient and personalized apparel product solutions to consumers. A critical challenge within this customization process is the determination of sizes. While existing research addresses comfort evaluation in relation to wearer and garment fit, little attention has been given to how garment fit influences the wearer’s body image, which is also an important purchase consideration. This study investigates the impact of garment fit on the wearer’s body scale perception using quantitative research design. A digital dataset of avatars, clothed in varying sizes of T-shirts, were created for the body scale perception experiment, and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was developed to predict the effect of T-shirt fit on body image. With only a small number of garments and body measurements as inputs, the ANN model can accurately predict the body scales of the clothed persons. It was found that the effect of apparel fit on body image varies depending on the wearer’s gender, body size, and shape. This model can be applied to enhance the online garment shopping experience with respect to personalized body image enhancement.

Modelling the cost-benefit impact of integrated product modularisation and postponement in the supply chain for pharmaceutical mass customisation

Realisation of pharmaceutical product and production systems capable of delivering product customisation cost-effectively is essential for adding value to patients and society through improved tailoring of therapies to individuals relative to current mass-produced products. To address the continued lack of evidence-based system solutions, this study presents a holistic design framework and a novel computational platform for enabling design explorations of integrated pharmaceutical product and supply chain (SC) reconfiguration. The design and modelling framework developed herein takes an end-to-end SC perspective, adapts the mass customisation strategies of product modularisation and postponement, and demonstrates case study simulations based on real-life therapy and SC archetypes. The cost-effectiveness assessment with the derived integrated systems computational platform confirm that product modularisation drives patient benefit through variety provision and that postponement drives cost reduction in an end-to-end SC. A novel insight is therefore that both product modularisation and postponement, in an integrated manner, are required for maximising cost-effective customisation. Moreover, the computational simulations, founded and modelled on real-life scenarios, provide design requirements for reconfigurable product and SC systems in a pharmaceutical context. In all, these findings are imperative for providing guidance on integrated pharmaceutical product and production systems design and mass customisation/ mass personalisation/mass individualisation realisation.

Engineering-to-order manufacturing: A criticality analysis of key challenges and solutions based on literature review

Engineer-to-Order (ETO) manufacturing companies involve customised production products based on specific customer requirements, and face a significant challenge. Some of those challenges are related with this type of company’s activities in production scheduling, planning and control, efficiency improvement and lead time reduction. The present study was conducted with a systematic literature review and a survey from ETO firms to identify the most frequent and critical problems. Among the most critical issues identified is the difficulty in optimising production performance (P3), with a GCI value of 16, implying that both time and cost share the same critical level. An analysis using a proposed Criticality Matrix was then performed enabling companies to prioritise decision-making and resource allocation. The results highlight the importance of adopting mass customisation strategies, innovative approaches and workflow optimisation. Continuous monitoring and analysis of criticality levels can also help ETO companies identify emerging issues and improve informed decisions. Effective communication and collaboration among stakeholders were also identified as vital. Future research could be done expanding further the study sample and developing decision-support tools for ETO manufacturing companies. This study contributes to the field by providing a new criticality matrix for ETO companies to understand better and address their production challenges, aiding in decision-making and resource allocation.

Modeling Mass Customization Level in Apparel and Textile Design Field

Mass customization is a new approach to manufacturing and providing services that is revolutionizing business and mainly in textile and apparel field.
 How can we model the mass customization level? In this study we will present a review of the mass customization concept in textile and apparel field, and some key success factors such as modular product design.
 It presents also a framework, aiming to develop the mass customization for textile and apparel industries, by reviewing and modeling the mass customization strategy by assessing the mass production level and the co-design experience level and by presenting some scales to classify the mass customization level.

The Evidence of a Thai Restaurant's Mass Customization Implementation for Firm Survival During the Pandemic Crisis

To survive in any crisis, business owners and executives must be able to adapt and change in all aspects of business functions, especially in the marketing function. The aim of the study is to investigate an efficient marketing strategy to provide the implementation for firms' survival. To explore the advantages and how to manage a mass customization strategy in the restaurant business during a pandemic period. The authors conducted the research by selecting restaurants that have proven successful and exploring the key success management factors for further proof. The results show that the moderator, customer collaboration management, of the restaurant sector has a positive impact on the relationship between consumption experience and customer satisfaction through customer engagement. Additionally, the result indicates that the strategic and process implications during a crisis must be tailored to the sub-stages.

Synchronisation of material flows in mass-customised production systems: a literature-based classification framework and industrial application

The mass customisation strategy is needed by manufacturing companies to face the increasing variety and unpredictability of products required by customers. However, mass customisation may increase the complexity of managing manufacturing and production logistics activities, for example due to reduced product batch sizes. The synchronisation of material flows within the factory is emerging as a way to address this complexity, as it enables an effective and efficient implementation of mass customisation. Indeed, the fourth Industrial Revolution introduces new digital levers, which can be combined with traditional managerial levers to achieve the synchronisation of material flows within the factory. This study contributes to the rising stream of research on this topic. A systematic literature review was conducted, leading to the development of a classification framework of the levers supporting the synchronisation of material flows. The identified managerial levers are: storage of materials, feeding policy, and scheduling. The digital levers are: materials tracking, process tracking, data analytics, and assistance systems. The developed framework was operationalised in four industrial cases and applied as a tool to map their levers related to the synchronisation of material flows.

Automatic Configuration of an Order as an Integral Part of a Cyber-Physical System in a Manufacturing Operating According to Mass-Customisation Strategy

The contemporary consumer market determines the use of mass customisation by manufacturers. Therefore, from the point of view of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), concept data and communications and analytics are relevant to the implementation of the mass-customisation strategy. The problem involves at least three subjects: how to connect the currently available information system within an enterprise with new I4.0 technologies, how new information solutions can support the verification of the feasibility of tailoring an order to the needs of the customer, and, finally, how to model a knowledge base for a cyber-physical system containing a formal record of the knowledge acquired regarding customer preferences. Therefore, in this paper, we developed a new algorithm that will enable, on one hand, the collection and recording of customer preferences, and, on the other hand, the integration of those data and information that are available within the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The main contribution of this work is the use of specialist knowledge and data from ERP regarding production capabilities implemented in a manufacturing enterprise in order to model the scenario of generating possible orders for a client, and finally applying the new solution for the operation of manufacturing according to mass-customisation strategy in a real company that manufactures mattresses.

Paying Twice for Aesthetic Customization? The Negative Effect of Uniqueness on a Product's Resale Value

Customers frequently gravitate toward unique products, and firms increasingly utilize mass customization strategies allowing customers to self-customize products according to their unique preferences. While existing research shows that customers are willing to pay extra for this uniqueness, the present investigation points to a potential cost of self-customization that has been largely overlooked thus far. Specifically, the authors argue that what creates value for the individual consumer-designer (i.e., the original customer of the self-customized product) might conversely be detrimental to potential customers on the secondhand market, particularly in the context of aesthetic (vs. functional) customization. Results of three distinct data sets (including an analysis of more than 500,000 preowned car sales listings) support this uniqueness-hurts-resale hypothesis and provide a series of more nuanced findings. Consistent with the theorizing and empirical studies, three follow-up experiments show that although consumer-designers’ valuations are positively affected by uniqueness, uniqueness indeed negatively affects secondhand-market customers’ willingness to pay. This is because the more unique a given configuration is to a given consumer-designer, the lower the likelihood that said design will meet secondhand-market customers’ taste preferences. The findings point to a tension between maximizing utility at first purchase and minimizing the related cost of aesthetic customization at resale.

Engineer-to-Order Challenges and Issues: A Systematic Literature Review of the manufacturing industry

Companies in engineer–to–order (ETO) manufacturing environments that seek efficiency gains through adopting a mass customisation strategy meet significant challenges. The implementation of the mass customisation (MC) strongly focuses on transitioning from mass production. The purpose of this study is to identify current areas of concern and operational challenges when adopting mass customisation principles in ETO companies. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was carried to evaluate the challenges the Portuguese Industry faces in the moulding companies’ sectors and how they are improving their ability to meet deadlines. The study will look at ways of boosting customer satisfaction by providing unique products at a relatively low cost. The study exposed issues of MC in ETO companies in general, it is critical to achieving more efficient use of resources, workflow, and innovative management methods and approaches to deal with the variability and complexity of this manufacturing system. The competitive pressure to achieve better efficiency and effectiveness in this type of organisation requires constantly searching for new concepts and tools that can be developed and applied. Furthermore, this paper explores the ETO companies' significant difficulties and the technical and scientific solutions used and proposed as its significant contribution, as well as a proposal for future research and development to increase ETO companies' resilience and performance level in managing their value chain and executing operations in response to customer requirements.

Synergies between Mass Customisation and Construction 4.0 Technologies

A challenge faced by some companies in the residential building sector is to cope with the complexity introduced to respond to the increasing diversity of customer demands in a profitable and sustainable way. Mass customisation (MC) has been described as a strategy to deliver customised products at costs and delivery times similar to mass production. The implementation of this strategy can be supported by several information and communication technologies emerging in the Industry 4.0 paradigm, which has been named Construction 4.0 in the construction industry. The aim of this research work is to identify the synergistic potential between Construction 4.0 technologies and the implementation of MC practices in the construction sector. A decision matrix associating a set of MC practices and C4.0 technologies has been devised based on a literature review. Specialists assessed the relationships between items, and the Jaccard similarity index was calculated to understand which Construction 4.0 technologies should be jointly implemented to support MC strategies. As a secondary contribution, this study has also proposed a method to guide companies in the identification of technologies that can support the implementation of MC in specific contexts.

A novel method based on a convolutional graph neural network for manufacturing cost estimation

With the widespread application of mass customization strategy, estimating the manufacturing cost of products to provide suitable references for the quotations of products can assist enterprises to adapt to the competitive market. Moreover, estimating the manufacturing cost of products in the design stage can assist designers in optimizing product designs. With the continuous development of deep learning, studies on part manufacturing cost estimation based on deep learning have started in recent years. However, the existing deep learning-based methods ignore the part’s precision information (e.g. roughness, tolerance) that is important to the manufacturing cost, making them less practical. To this end, how to take the precision information of the parts into account in the manufacturing cost estimation to make deep learning-based methods more applicable is a difficulty that needs to be solved. In this context, an innovative convolutional graph neural network (ConvGNN)-based manufacturing cost estimation approach that considers precision information is suggested. Specifically, an attribute graph that is based on machining features and includes precision information is defined to represent the 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model of a part first. Then, a novel ConvGNN framework named Cost Estimation Network (CEN) is constructed that combines spectral-based convolutional layers and spatial-based convolutional layers. The input of CEN is the attribute graph of a part, while the output is the manufacturing cost. After being trained with historical data and an improved loss function based on Root Mean Squared Log Error (RMSLE), CEN can be applied to estimate manufacturing costs. In addition, since the deep learning model is treated as a black box, a modified gradient-weight class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) process is developed to explain the rationale of the manufacturing cost decision and differentiate the degree of influence of various machining features on the cost of parts. In experimental studies, the computer numerical control (CNC) machined rotary parts are used as examples to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the presented approach.

How to adopt mass customization strategy: Understanding the role of consumers’ perceived brand value

How to make a suitable decision by balancing the benefits and costs of Mass customization (MC) has been widely discussed by scholars. While with the development of information and production technology, some traditional factors that affect firms’ MC decisions have significantly changed. Meanwhile, consumers’ brand recognition is playing an increasingly important role in consumers’ purchase decisions. Motivated by the new conditions, we develop an analytical model to investigate how a firm’s MC decisions are affected by consumers’ perceived brand value and customization cost. The solution of the benchmark model shows that (i) if brand loss outweighs maximal travel cost, the firm generally abandons MC even if MC is costless; (ii) the firm is more likely to adopt MC when the impact of MC on perceived brand value is positive; (iii) a higher customization level may not imply a higher price, but the firm always obtains higher profit with the increase of customization level, and (iv) the implementation of MC may derive an economically inefficient situation. As an extension, we consider a scenario where consumers have heterogeneous attitudes toward the impact of MC on brand value and find that: (i) the main conclusions in the benchmark model are still valid; and (ii) consumers’ heterogeneous attitudes toward brand value can benefit themselves.

Individuality Included

Only a few percent of new detached houses in Finland are designed by architects. Most people planning to build a house use only free design services included in the price of house delivery. This means for example that a building engineer designs the house based on some standard model, which he changes according to discussions between sales person and customer. This often results in seemingly generic houses that do not capture most value of the plot. Log houses make no exception in the Finnish market, even if they are a somewhat luxury product abroad. Why do not people in Finland use architects for designing their log houses? Is it because of the price of the design work? How does the log manufacturer’s system of configuring houses work without architects? Are log house companies satisfied with the current system? Could mass customization strategies be suitable for developing design and production processes of log houses?
 This paper presents results of studying the need and supply of individuality of log houses, and current house design processes that let users participate configuring their new log homes in Finland. The study was carried out via consumer study and interviews of log house industry’s managing directors and sales personnel. All of these companies are building non-speculative individually-commissioned houses, building houses to meet customers’ individual orders rather than for stock.
 Based on our consumer study, there is a great demand for individual houses. Only 8,8% of the consumers would choose a standard house model. However only 10% of respondents would prefer a unique house designed by an architect, while 68.9% would prefer a modified standard model. Most important reason for not using architect is the price of the design work. This results in contradiction, since consumers want an individual house, but are not ready to pay for designing.
 Surprisingly, all interviewed managing directors of log house companies said they produce only individual houses. Customers always want some modifications even in the standard models, and that results in designing each house anew. This has a negative effect on the profits of the companies, since design work is included in the price of the house delivery. What customers might not realize is that when design work is done at the risk of house builders or even sales people, it is done with as little effort and cost as possible.
 Since the existing design process of log houses produces often seemingly generic but always laboriously planned houses, there would be need for improvement. Systematization of individual choices could benefit log house companies in terms of design resources. And If mass customization approach would bring architectural quality available to a broader group of new log house dwellers, they would benefit, too.

The paradigm shift of mass customisation research

Industrial manufacturing is a core component of a nation’s economic wealth. It is driven by technology, and its paradigm has shifted from craft production to mass production to lean production to mass customisation (MC). We identify how emerging technologies offer a new way to shift MC research focusing on the scientific communities that have been driving MC research, changes in MC throughout the years, and the technological advances that influence future research trends of MC. We then identify MC paradigms. We analyse 1,947 MC papers from 1992 to 2019 and discover the research attention changes from the perspectives of the communities and themes using topic modelling. Our result indicates that MC was explained in terms of the business and marketing strategy (BMS) and the operations management (OM), in accordance with technological development. In BMS, MC topics moved from demand uncertainty to industry transformation. In OM, topics changed from assembly line for product differentiation to additive manufacturing. We discuss the future research agenda according to the technological advances in computer-aided design, additive manufacturing, machine learning, identification technologies, virtual reality, and human–robot collaboration. Not only researchers but practitioners and policymakers can utilise our approach to analyse and formulate MC strategies considering new technologies.

Guidelines for the Implementation of Mass Customization in Affordable House-Building Projects

Mass customization (MC) is a business strategy that stands for the ability to develop high value-added products within short time frames and at relatively low costs. It emerged from the manufacturing industry and has been applied to several industrial sectors, including housing. However, the segment of affordable housing programs in developing countries has been criticized for having a high degree of product standardization, and failure to meet customers’ specific needs. The aim of this paper is to propose guidelines for implementing mass customization in affordable house-building projects. It is based on a design science research study carried out in a small-sized company, which explored the possibility of adopting mass customization ideas to offer some flexibility for customers while maintaining low costs. The main contributions of this research study are concerned with expanding the current understanding of the components that enable MC to be implemented in the context of house-building companies that adopt traditional construction technologies. From a practical perspective, this investigation outlines several practices that can be introduced for the implementation of MC strategies at a relatively low cost by small-sized house-building companies.

Competition between online and offline retailer mass customization

As online sales increase, customers worldwide have different tastes, preferences, and lifestyles. Mass customization enables the offline retailer to satisfy the heterogeneous customer taste preferences. We adopt the Hotelling model to analyze mass customization strategy on the offline retailer to compete with the online retailer that sells the same product. We consider customers’ heterogeneous hassle costs when visiting offline and the online retailer and their heterogeneous taste preferences towards the products. We aim to examine the value of the mass customization to offline retailer. We found that the mass customization strategy can be great way for the offline retailer when competing with the online retailer. The mass customization strategy can be beneficial for the offline retailer’s profits than the non-mass customization strategy in considerations of customer taste preference. We also found that the breadth of the mass customization scope is subject to several factors, including mismatch cost. Mass customization is less effective when its implementation is costly.

How to Adopt Mass Customization Strategy: Understanding the Role of Consumers’ Perceived Brand Value

How to Adopt Mass Customization Strategy: Understanding the Role of Consumers’ Perceived Brand Value

Towards a mass customization in the fashion industry: An evolutionary decision aid model for apparel product platform design and optimization

To meet the diverse needs of customers with a competitive offering, many companies are utilizing product families and platform-based product development to increase variety, shorten lead times and reduce costs. However, current research in this area does not sufficiently examine broader enterprise considerations, such as production and inventory management complexity and costs, or expected sales. Furthermore, very few existing platform design methods integrate fitting and ergonomic considerations in their formulation.This study proposes a two-stage platform-based design process to support apparel brands to implement mass customization (MC) strategies. This work has been conducted in collaboration with Yamamay, an Italian underwear and lingerie brand. In the first stage, the characteristics of a scale-based platform (i.e. the number of product variants) are determined based on (i) the results of the anthropometric analysis of a large Italian female population sample, (ii) business considerations discussed together with brand managers and experts, (iii) and benchmarking data. In the second stage, a novel and ad-hoc developed evolutionary-based decision aid model stretches and shrinks the resulting classes looking for the optimal trade-off based on anthropometric data between the demand of garments that fit well and the percentage of the population that is satisfied with the proposed product family.The approach proposed here has been proved effective not only in theory but also in practice through a pilot launch of a test product family. Integrating scale-based platform design of apparel with ergonomic, production, inventory, and sales considerations makes this study unique and paves the way for the implementation of customization-as-a-service business model and for the transformation of the fashion industry into a technology- and knowledge-intensive industry.

Pharmaceutical Product Modularization as a Mass Customization Strategy to Increase Patient Benefit Cost-Efficiently

Customized pharmaceutical products aim to comply with the individual needs of a patient to enhance the treatment outcome. The current pharmaceutical production paradigm is, however, dominated by mass production, where the pharmaceutical products embrace a one-size-fits-all design with a low possibility of treatment optimization to patient needs. This production paradigm is not designed or intended for customized pharmaceutical products and operating this production context for customized pharmaceutical products is argued to be cost-inefficient. To address this challenge of inefficient production of customized pharmaceutical products, this study proposes an approach to modular pharmaceutical product design. As a mass customization strategy, product modularization enables serving customers with customized products cost-efficiently. The proposed modular pharmaceutical products integrate three product design requirements originating from patient needs: a scalable dose strength, a flexible target release profile, and a scalable treatment size. An approach to assess the value of these product designs is presented, by means of proposing three benefit metrics complying with respective design requirements and a cost metric assessing the cost of producing these modular pharmaceutical product designs. Results suggest that pharmaceutical product modularization can, by keeping the number of produced components low, substantially increase the external product variety and, hence, enhance the treatment outcome of patients. Furthermore, results indicate that the achieved benefit for the patient through product modularization increases beyond additional costs arising during production. However, a careful modularization must be performed to optimize the tradeoff between the increased benefit and cost.

Mass Customisation for Zero-Energy Housing

This article describes the potential that co-design and marketing strategies have on increasing the consumption of energy-efficient dwellings. It explains how Japanese housebuilders are using ‘mass customisation’—a phenomenon that mirrors the production and marketing of the automobile sector—in order to produce zero-energy houses and how this applies to the UK. The research consisted of a comparative analysis of Japanese and UK housebuilding. It identifies how mass customisation strategies are used to drive the sales of zero-energy houses in Japan and infers how to apply these in the UK context. This research found that some housebuilders in the UK are already using production strategies that resemble Japanese practices; however, the sustainable benefits observed in the Japanese context are not present in the UK because housebuilders’ mass customisation strategies are limited to construction and not used as part of the marketing, co-design, and selling processes. Production and consumption of sustainable houses would increase in the UK if housebuilders implemented full mass customisation, meaning selecting existing robust production processes, defining an appropriate space solution, and using informative navigation tools.